Earth moves as Cathy first with Costa news

KEEPING up with the news ... Cathy Humphreys shows her mum Marjorie a copy of her paper with her daughter Rebeca.

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Cathy Humphreys grew up in St Martin's Street, Castleton, and started work helping tourists in Lloret De Mar on the Costa Brava in 1976 when she was 19.

She was transferred to Benidorm two years later and after seven more years coping with holidaymakers' queries, Cathy joined the English-language newspaper 'Costa Blanca News' as an office junior.

The former St Edward's CE Primary School pupil has now worked her way up to be the assistant editor of its sister paper 'The Post'.

Cathy said: "Working as a rep has stood me in good stead for working on the paper because I feel I'm able to cope with every situation imaginable.

"The jobs have certain similarities in that I'm dealing with people all the time, and I get to meet some really interesting people."

Cathy first got the writing bug when she was press-ganged into writing stories for the Thomson holiday company's in-house magazine 'Holidaymaker'.

She had to send articles in from the resorts she was working in and won a prize for sending in the most material.

She was lucky enough to have great stories such as an earthquake in Benidorm and 5,000 US marines visiting the Costa Brava on the SS Forestal.

Cathy, whose mum Marjorie still lives in St Martin's Street, has had some hair-raising experiences working on the paper. These include having to drive over the mountains from the newspaper office to the printers with the proofs of the paper just after she had passed her driving test.

She also worked with a BBC television crew when they filmed a documentary about Benidorm.

Cathy, who is married to Pepe and has an eight-year-old daughter Rebeca, said: "The Costa Blanca News is a more established newspaper than the Post but Mollie and I think of it as our baby and we really enjoy working on it. I have a family in Spain so I don't think I will be swapping the Post for the Rochdale Observer.''